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Celebrating Spring! Authors in Bloom Blog Hop

I adore spring and one of my favorite ways to celebrate (as a writer) is by participating in the annual Authors In Bloom blog hop put together by author Dianne Venetta. It's just a great way to get some gardening tips, pick up recipes, learn about new books and win some awesome prizes.

As it happens, Rayez, the hero of A CHRISTMAS WISH (my most recent release) is a chef and he's totally into seasonal cooking. My inspiration for Rayez, who is also an exiled fire djinn (genie), is the very hunky actor Dwayne Johnson.

So what would Rayez whip up to celebrate Spring? A simple, refreshing salad with different types of peas. :)

Three Pea Salad

This
simple, but satisfying, combination of sugar snap peas, snow peas and baby peas
is crisp and green. A dish that seems to signify spring. You can add heft to
it, by adding in cubed ham and shavings of a hard cheese like parmesan or
manchego.

In another large bowl, whisk
the shallot, basil, lemon juice, and mustard together. Whisk in the olive oil
until emulsified. Season with salt and pepper.

Add the sugar snap peas to the
boiling water and blanch for 20 seconds. Add the snow peas and cook for 20
seconds. Add the frozen baby peas and cook for 20 seconds longer, until
the sugar snaps and snow peas are crisp-tender and the baby peas are
heated through.

Drain and immediately transfer
the colander to the ice water to stop the cooking. Drain again and pat the
peas dry. Add the peas to the dressing, season with salt and pepper, and
toss to coat. Serve.

Now a bit about Rayez's story....

Won the Novella division of the 2015 Gayle Wilson Award of Excellence

*This is an enhanced and expanded version of a story previously published as Sealed With A Kiss in the Alphas Unleashed anthology.*

Rayez, a smoking hot chef and fire djinn in exile, lands himself in deep trouble (at the bottom of a beer bottle) when he tries to help a mysterious beautiful woman.

Selene is pursued and desperate. She'll do anything to keep her brother safe--including capture a djinn.

While deception brings them together, dangerous enemies make them unlikely allies. Can one gigantic wrong lead to two rights and true love?

My prize is a $5 Amazon gift certificate for one person who comments on this post, chosen at random. Be sure to leave your email address so I can get in touch with you.

The hop grand prizes: To win, visitors must hit each and every author on the hop. Grand prize is an ereader of their choice (up to $200 value) with second prize a $25 gift card to the ebook retailer of their choice.The blog hop runs April 8 through 17, 2015.

Oh does that recipe sound delicious, going to have to convince my husband we need to grow peas this year, we just have a small garden so we have to pick and choose what we grow each year.skpetal at hotmail dot com

Love the sound of your novella! My current book boyfriend is a djinn named David (from the Weather Warden series). Wonder if this one would dethrone him!!(email's in blogger profile, thank you for the giveaway!)

Also, *high fives* Rachel Caine! I was so sad to hit the end of the Weather Warden series. Liked it way more than Morganville Vamps. I liked that one too, but it didn't quite have the same hold of me :)

So sorry about the lateness of my posting the winner here. We had a bad storm & it killed my internet for a few days...oh yeah, I went crazy! The winner of my gift card giveaway is SMILES! I'll be contacting you! Also congrats to Book Attict and books4me on winning the grand prizes!

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